Arts Plus. Gospel.

Gospel According To Price: Everyone In The Spotlight

November 30, 1994|By Rohan B Preston, Special to the Tribune.

There was little pomp but much pride at the sweltering St. Paul Church of God in Christ, 4526 S. Wabash Ave., where a battery of all-star gospel choirs and singers gathered to pay tribute to Vernon Oliver Price.

Price is a gospel singer's singer who has been performing for nearly half a century. Her style ranges from operatic and proper gospel to from-the-depths-of-the-soul redemption songs. (Called an "anointed" singer because of her earthiness, she would not give her age, only that she is a great-grandmother three times over.)

Monday evening's four-hour event was a swinging, foot-stomping romp through gospel history-including performances of good-news jubilee and stirring spiritual-with the trilling solos of the Vernon Park Church of God Adult Choir, on the one hand, followed by the fitful whooping and sandpapery singing of Albertina Walker on the other.

Price may not be a household name such as the late Marion Williams, but the matriarch of a gospel family (her eldest son, Louis, performed with The Temptations in the 1970s) is admired by gospel singers far and wide because of her range and soulful style, her long years of tutoring, and her selfless singing, much of it on St. Paul's weekly radio broadcasts (1-2 p.m. Sundays on WGCI-AM).

In a dramatic solo, Price, ably accompanied on piano by Nash Shaffer, began in a stately, even stiff, posture. The classically trained singer then launched into a waltzlike, marching version of "Wade in the Water," applying such rich timbres and coloring to this number that its promise of assured deliverance seemed immediate.

But while she sang heartily, it was her guests who raised the roof. A serious belter, vocalist Lawanda Campbell began in soft, almost funereal tones. She then built her song into a sweet exultation, rolling her words into a stentorian, proto-sensual trembling which, after her whispery denouement, leaves the listener at peace. Hers may be the last voice you want to hear before you leave this world.

And for sheer theater, no one could beat LuDella Evans Reed, who directed the beautifully robed Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church Choir. Shot through with a powerful spirituality, she conducted from the pulpit and the aisle, hot-stepping as if walking on coals, all the while leading her choir on an ever-reprising number. The music, so charged, was reflected in her visage, and she was not afraid to get ugly with the holy spirit, making unspeakable faces that melted into a serene bliss.

Choirs from Chicago's St. Paul, First Church of Deliverance and Apostolic Church of God also rendered spirited performances.